Halliburton Co has agreed to plead guilty to destroying computer test results related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday.

The government said Halliburton's guilty plea is the third by a company over the spill and requires the world's second-largest oilfield services company to pay a maximum $200,000 statutory fine.

Halliburton also agreed to three years of probation and to continue cooperating with the criminal probe into the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Disaster: The fire aboard the mobile offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, USA. The explosion happened on 20 April 2010 triggering the worst oil spill in US history

The company said in a statement Thursday night that it had agreed to
plead guilty 'to one misdemeanor violation associated with the deletion
of records created after the Macondo well incident, to pay the statutory
maximum fine of $200,000 and to accept a term of three years
probation.'

The Justice Department has agreed it will not pursue further criminal
prosecution of the company or its subsidiaries for any conduct arising
from the 2010 spill, Halliburton's statement said, adding that federal
officials have also 'acknowledged the company's significant and valuable
cooperation during the course of its investigation.'

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Court approval is required. Houston-based Halliburton also made a separate, voluntary $55 million payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Justice Department said.

Edward Sherman, a Tulane University law professor, said the plea could suggest weakness in Halliburton's position in negotiating a settlement over spill-related liabilities.

'Their willingness to plead to this may also indicate that they'd like to settle up with the federal government on the civil penalties,' he said. 'It may indicate a softening of their position.'

Rescue: Support ships are seen near where efforts continue to recover oil and cap the Deepwater Horizon spill site on July 3, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana

Halliburton confirmed in a statement that it pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge and confirmed the plea agreement's terms.

The disaster caused 11 deaths and triggered the largest U.S. offshore oil spill following the rupture of the Macondo oil well, which was 65 percent owned by BP Plc. Halliburton had earlier provided cementing services to help seal the well.

Halliburton was BP's cement contractor on the drilling rig that
exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

According to the news release, Halliburton conducted its own review
of the well's design and construction after the blowout, and established
a working group to review "whether the number of centralizers used on
the final production casing could have contributed to the blowout."

The casing is a steel pipe placed in a well to maintain its integrity.

Halliburton Energy Services has agreed to plead guilty to destroying evidence in connection with the 2010 Gulf oil spill, the Department of Justice said Thursday

Halliburton was BP's cement contractor on the drilling rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The disaster triggered an explosion that killed 11 and spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf

Centralizers are metal collars attached on the outside of the casing.
Centralizers can help keep the casing centered in the wellbore.

'Centralization can be significant to the quality of subsequent
cementing around the bottom of the casing,' the news release said

According to the government, Halliburton recommended to BP that the Macondo well contain 21 centralizers, metal collars that can improve cementing, but BP chose to use six.

The government said that, during an internal probe into the cementing after the blowout, Halliburton ordered workers to destroy computer simulations that showed little difference between using six and 21 centralizers.

Efforts to locate the simulations forensically were unsuccessful, the government said.

A document detailing the allegations was filed with the U.S. District Court in New Orleans.

Around May 2010, the news release says, the company directed a
program manager to conduct two computer simulations of the Macondo well
final cementing job 'to compare the impact of using six versus 21
centralizers.'

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg (R), flanked by outgoing Chief Executive Tony Hayward (L) address the media outside the company's head office in central London, on July 27, 2010 after Hayward stepped down following the Deepwater disaster

The simulations indicated there was little difference between using
six and 21 centralizers, but the program manager "was directed to, and
did, destroy these results," federal officials say.

Similar evidence was destroyed in a subsequent incident, in June 2010, the Justice Department said.

The plea agreement and criminal charge both arise from a criminal
investigation by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force into the spill.

Pelicans rest on an oil retention boom on July 25, 2010 near Grand Isle, Louisiana in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 and decimated local eco-systems

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans recently presided
over a trial in the matter and could decide how much more money BP,
Halliburton and rig owner Transocean Ltd. owe for their roles in the
catastrophe.

Halliburton and BP have blamed each other for the failure of the cement job to seal the Macondo well.

During the spring trial, BP asked a federal judge to sanction
Halliburton for allegedly destroying evidence about the role that its
cement slurry design could have played in the blowout.

After the trial started on Feb. 25, Halliburton discovered cement
samples at a Lafayette laboratory that weren't turned over to the
Justice Department for testing after the spill. Halliburton lawyers
called it a 'simple misunderstanding" and accused BP of trying to create
a 'sideshow.'

Halliburton announced in April that it was trying to negotiate a
settlement to resolve a substantial portion of private claims it has
faced since the Deepwater Horizon rig blast spawned America's worst
offshore oil spill.

BP and Transocean Ltd, which owned the drilling rig, previously entered guilty pleas over other aspects of the Gulf oil spill, and agreed to pay respective criminal fines of $1.26 billion and $400 million.

Both declined to comment on the Halliburton plea.

Halliburton, BP and Transocean are also defendants in a federal civil trial that began in February to apportion blame and set damages for the oil spill.

The first witness for Halliburton, cementing service coordinator Nathaniel Chaisson, had testified that he was concerned about BP's use of just six centralizers.

The trial is scheduled to resume in September. Halliburton said in April it was in talks to settle private claims against it in the damages trial.